Rooster ewers
Type:
Ewers
Date:
Late eighth to early ninth century
Location or Findspot (Modern-Day Country):
Syria
Medium:
Bronze
Dimensions:
39.4 × 24.1 × 19.4 cm
Description:
This ewer is one of six early Islamic bronze vessels with bird-shaped spouts. It was cast in pieces and then embellished with molded, engraved, and punched decoration that includes an openwork collar, a beaded handle, and a crowing-rooster spout. A closely related ewer, the Marwan Ewer, takes its name from its findspot in Egypt near the tomb of Marwan II (r. 744–50), the last Umayyad caliph in Damascus, who fled the Abbasids and was assassinated in 750, but that does not tell us when the piece was made or deposited in the cemetery. Most scholars prefer a date in the late eighth or early ninth century.
These ewers imitate late Roman or Byzantine glass bottles in form, and their decorative motifs are also drawn from the vocabulary of Late Antiquity: the pearl roundels were surely inspired by Sasanian stucco or textiles, and the handle springs from a cast palmette that imitates Sasanian or Sogdian models. Two dolphins support the handle, as is often the case on late Roman vessels. On the globular body, arches frame fruit trees and various animals.
Roosters were associated with royalty in ancient art, and they were sacred to Zoroastrians. A hadith of Muhammad connected the crowing rooster with morning prayers, but the ninth-century Book of Animals by the Abbasid scholar al-Jaḥiẓ (d. 869) considered roosters to be foolish creatures that cannot fly despite being covered in feathers. It is impossible to find a unified program or message in the vessels' decoration; instead, it is likely that these objects, with their disparate motifs and techniques, were made to prompt 'ajab, pleasurable wonder produced by strange things, a concept described in positive terms by Abbasid authors. If the recesses on the neck and body were once filled with colored glass or stones, as some scholars have suggested, then the ewer would have had an even livelier surface effect.
These ewers imitate late Roman or Byzantine glass bottles in form, and their decorative motifs are also drawn from the vocabulary of Late Antiquity: the pearl roundels were surely inspired by Sasanian stucco or textiles, and the handle springs from a cast palmette that imitates Sasanian or Sogdian models. Two dolphins support the handle, as is often the case on late Roman vessels. On the globular body, arches frame fruit trees and various animals.
Roosters were associated with royalty in ancient art, and they were sacred to Zoroastrians. A hadith of Muhammad connected the crowing rooster with morning prayers, but the ninth-century Book of Animals by the Abbasid scholar al-Jaḥiẓ (d. 869) considered roosters to be foolish creatures that cannot fly despite being covered in feathers. It is impossible to find a unified program or message in the vessels' decoration; instead, it is likely that these objects, with their disparate motifs and techniques, were made to prompt 'ajab, pleasurable wonder produced by strange things, a concept described in positive terms by Abbasid authors. If the recesses on the neck and body were once filled with colored glass or stones, as some scholars have suggested, then the ewer would have had an even livelier surface effect.
Relevant Textbook Chapter(s):
5
Repository and Online Resources:
• Read more about the Metropolitan Museum's rooster ewer.
• See the Marwan Ewer in the Museum of Islamic Art, Cairo.
